If any genre of science fiction is actually right about the future, it’s probably cyberpunk: rule by corporations, “high tech and low life,” cybernetics, the use of technology in ways its creators never intended, and loners wandering a landscape covered with lenses and screens. Hell, I don’t call that science fiction; I call that “Tuesday.”
Spin State
A famous scientist is burnt to a crisp deep within a mine. Tough as hell, severely cybernetically augmented Li and her world-spanning, snarky artificial intelligence ex-lover must figure out why.
I liked the characters, the dark mines where a lot of the action takes places, and enjoyed the fast-paced plot twists, even if I did get lost a few times.
Bottom line recommendation: Buy it used or get it at the library.
GOSU-B by ukitakumuki
The best military science fiction isn’t just a bunch of space battles and cigar-chomping armed combat (although those are fun). The most interesting books also examine what life in the military actually involves, and what combat can do to a person’s mind.
Hard science fiction is characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy or technical detail, or on both. From a movie perspective, think more Blade Runner or Alien than Star Wars.
Steampunk is science fiction after a few LSD-laced absinthe jello shots; it can include alternate histories, vampires, time travel, magic, and romance. As long as you feature some technology suggestive of steam power, you can go as crazy as you want, and several writers on this list have done exactly that. For some reason, a large number of steampunk authors appear to live in Portland, Oregon.
I’m not a huge fan of time travel because of all the paradoxes that are usually ignored or explained away badly. I also watched way too many Star Trek episodes where time travel was used as a fix-it for almost any situation, like some temporal Gorilla Glue.
Fortunately, the books below deal with time travel in intelligent (or just fun) ways, introduce cool ideas, and are generally excellent stories that are very well written.
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The Martian is one of the most enjoyable science fiction books I’ve ever read. An astronaut is left behind on Mars, and must survive by himself for over a year, using only his wits and what was left behind by a few previous missions.
Author Weir does a masterful job in creating his highly likable, intelligent, and deeply human protagonist Mark Watney. The science in The Martian is hard and feels as real as stone.
This book is a great combination of man vs. nature à la Jack London, with the inventiveness of MacGyver, moments of laugh-out-loud humor, page-turning pacing, and plot twists that are surprising but in hindsight feel inevitable.
All in all, a good story well told.
Bottom line recommendation: buy this book and possibly frame it.
Robots are ridiculously cool, but why, exactly? Are humans just narcissists that want to see copies of themselves? Do we want to obliterate the line between human and machine out of raw curiosity? Or are stories about robots really stories about super-powerful humans, and we’re afraid of what someone much stronger or much smarter could do to us?
The answer is probably “yes” to all of these and more reasons, besides.
Discovering a new book series is a fantastic feeling. Here’s hoping you find something new below.
If none of these is enough for you, look into the Perry Rhodan series. A new novella has been published weekly since 1961, and there are currently over 2700 stories. If that’s still not enough of a challenge for you, they’re also in German.
Art by: ANTIFAN-REAL @ deviantART
Far future science fiction (usually meaning about 10,000 years from now) is the most optimistic SF subgenre because it assumes humanity will still be around in some recognizable form.